


if these wings could fly

by wordsandtea



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst and Fluff, Cas is lost, Destiel - Freeform, Falling In Love, Gabriel is a Little Shit, M/M, Mention of Drug Abuse, au-ish, dean is not honest about his feelings, fallen!cas, gabriel plays god, hospital au, human!Cas, nurse!Dean, takes place during season 9, well mainly angst because of all the fucking 12x23 feels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 19:08:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11319762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordsandtea/pseuds/wordsandtea
Summary: When Dean first gets assigned to take care of Castiel, he didn't expect any of this to happen. What could have been a complicated romance between a nurse and a broken junkie who thinks he is an angel of the lord turns out not to be quite what it seemed to be when nightmares and bits and pieces of memories begin to haunt Dean - nightmares and memories of a man with dark hair and eyes so blue begging to let him stay.





	if these wings could fly

“Mr. Novak?” A deep voice and a small knock on his door before someone entered the tiny room. “Oh, good, you are awake already,” the voice said cheerfully, and he heard steps coming closer. Something was scraped over the floor, a chair presumably, and someone sat down.

                             

“Mr. Novak? Can you hear me?” The voice tried again, but he still didn’t move. “Mr. Novak, if you are able to hear me, I’m going to have you give me a sign.”

 

Finally, he turned his head towards the voice. A tall man sat in front of him, a patient smile lingering on his lips, freckles spreading all over a pretty face and eyes so green it reminded him of morning dew bouncing off the tip of a grass stem.

 

“Castiel,” he finally said, after what seemed years of studying the man’s face.

 

“I’m sorry?” the man leaned forwards and offered him a reassuring smile.

 

“My name. Castiel.” He sighed heavily, it kinda hurt in his lungs to talk, but after he closed his eyes for a few seconds, he continued. “Please call me Castiel.”

 

“I see,” the man nodded, still hiding behind the polite smile. “I’m Dean Winchester. Castiel, do you know where you are?”

 

Castiel frowned at him, which Dean took as a “no”.

 

“This is the Saint Michael’s Hospital. You currently are in room 2-63.” He paused for a moment, waiting for a reaction, but there was none. Well, Castiel blinked, but he could hardly count that as a reaction. “Do you know why you are here?”

 

“Are you a doctor?”

 

“All the white clothes make me look like that, huh? But no, I’m not. I work here as a nurse, and I was assigned to you. Do you know why you are here?” He repeated himself carefully, politely, as if he didn’t want to scare him.

 

“I don’t know. I shouldn’t be here.” Castiel closed his eyes, taking another deep breath.

 

“Why shouldn’t you be here?”

 

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

 

Dean smiled. “Maybe you can try later.” He paused again. “Do you want me to tell you why you are here?”

 

Castiel shrugged, the small movement sending waves of pain into his spine. His face twisted in pain, and the clinical white world in front of his eyes turning black for a moment. A low growl escaped his chapped lips.

 

When his vision became clear again, he found a warm, gentle hand resting on his shoulder. “It’s okay, Castiel. We’ll work on the whole moving thing later, okay? We have time.”

 

Castiel squinted. Why did it hurt so much? “Why am I here?”

 

“What’s the last thing you can remember?”

 

Castiel glared blankly for a few moments, but eventually, his contours softened. His eyes became crystal clear, and his lips curled up just slightly into a fainted smile. “Can you keep a secret, Dean?”

 

“That’s my job, keeping secrets,” Dean answered softly, adding gentle pressure on his shoulder in an attempt to assure him to keep talking.

 

Castiel lowered his voice as he spoke, his eyes directed at Dean but not really seeing him, like he was trying to watch something far, far away. “I was flying,” he whispered eventually.

 

“Flying?” One of Dean’s eyebrows lifted, but he didn’t seem to be questioning him. Rather, he was encouraging him to tell him more.

 

“Do you believe in God, Dean?”

 

If their life was a movie scene, there’d be drums playing in the distance, dramatically introducing the theme song. But their life wasn’t a movie, and nothing they did was scripted and everything was honest, and the room remained silent apart from the breathing and the constant beeping of the machine that took Castiel’s pulse.

 

The polite smile slipped from Dean’s face, revealing a frown that only years of loss could build, and he didn’t need to answer for Castiel to know. “Do you?”

 

Castiel smiled at him forgivingly, but his eyes were sparkling with something superior and his voice suddenly sounded deeper, louder, intensifying with every passing second. “I’m an angel or the lord.”

 

Dean tried his best to contain a laugh. “You are?”

 

There was another knock on the door. Again, it was opened before either of them could answer. “Mr. Novak, I’m glad to see you are awake.”

                                       

“Oh, and here comes Doctor Sexy,” Dean announced and grinned at Castiel, who squinted at him in confusion.

 

“Is that his name?” he asked, all honesty and confusion. The innocent behind his voice made Dean feel like he had been there before.

 

“It isn’t.” Dean sighed. “And he doesn’t wear cowboy boots, either. His name’s Doctor Gabriel.  He got transferred to this hospital a week ago.”

 

Doctor Gabriel sat down next to Dean, and Castiel greeted him with a small nod.

 

“How are you feeling? Does anything hurt you?”

 

Castiel squinted at him. “Everything.”

 

The Doctor’s eyes flickered over the devices. “We will see whether we can give you some pain killers later.

 

“I suspect you don’t know why you are here, Castiel,” Doctor Gabriel continued softly. “I am going to tell you. Is that fine with you?”

 

Castiel glared at Dean for a moment, but then nodded again.

 

Doctor Gabriel cleared his throat. “Passengers called an ambulance when they found you on the ground in front of a church. Surveillance cameras proofed our first impression that you fell down from the roof. We found hints of the abuse of various drugs in your blood.” Doctor Gabriel paused, giving Castiel the room to say something, but he didn’t. So he continued. “Your left leg is broken, and the right one is covered in multiple wounds. You cracked your back a bit as well, but that’s nothing we won’t be able to fix.” He smiled gently. “But we are afraid you won’t be able to walk on your own for now. If you need help with the wheelchair, please ask Dean for help, anytime.”

 

Castiel squinted again. “What wheelchair?”

Then he turned his head to the other side, and his eyes fell upon the black wheelchair on the other side of his bed. “When can I leave?”

 

“When you’ve fully healed,” Doctor Gabriel explained patiently.

 

“I am able to heal myself,” Castiel offered eagerly. “I’m an angel of the lord.”

 

 _So much to keeping a secret_ , Dean thought, but he could feel the desperation of the man tingling deep within his own bones, and he had to dig his fingertips deep into the flesh of his palm in order not to reach out to his patient again.

 

Doctor Gabriel managed to remain more professional then Dean did – his face not showing any hint that he might not be completely serious.

 

“You were, but you aren’t anymore, Castiel.” Dean frowned as Doctor Gabriel used his first name no approach him, but maybe he had heard them talking earlier. He shrugged the weird feeling inside his stomach away. “That’s what the drugs made you think you still were. But I want you to remember, Castiel. Remember what happened to you.”

 

The room was dead silent for a minute, besides the constant beeping – like some divine clock counting down the hours they’d have left.

 

Then, eventually, Castiel gasped, and his eyes flew wide open – bright, blind, unseeing eyes, fixing on nothing and everything at all. The beeping sped up to a dangerous pace while the clinical air inside the room seemed to rustle with electricity. His voice sounded like shattered glass, the broken edges sharp and deadly.

 

“I fell.”

 

 

~’”*O*”’~

 

 

“What the hell was that earlier, Gabriel?!” Dean snapped and slammed his fist against the next wall. “We’re supposed to help people, not lie to them!”

 

Doctor Gabriel smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. They were laid upon Dean, dangerous and incredibly intimidating. A power he could not put his finger on seemed to fill the whole room, leaving no space for Dean to breathe.

 

“It’s _Doctor_ Gabriel for you, Dean,” he said, voice as cold as the floor beneath them, “and if it helps our patients, we lie to them, and you have nothing to say in that matter, because _I_ am the doctor, after all.”

 

“So what are you asking of me? To lie to him, too?” Dean growled quietly, but it was faint, and he knew defeat when he faced it.

 

“I’m not asking you to encourage him, but until his stats are stable enough to transfer him to a psychiatry, the best we can do for him is to go with it. We can’t risk telling him the truth.”

 

Dean scoffed. “The truth that the poor guy’s losing his mind?”

 

Gabriel smiled again, and this time it lit up his whiskey-colored eyes, eyes that suddenly seemed so ancient it left Dean speechless.

 

 “Truth is a dangerous matter, Dean. And for some souls, it is the reason they lose their minds. We must give him a home here, or else we saved him in vain.”

 

 

~’”*O*”’~

 

 

That night, a weird dream was haunting Dean in his sleep.

 

_They sat on a bed, him and another man. The man had black hair and was wearing a red hoodie where Dean thought for some reason there had to be a trenchcoat, and when he glared at the wall, he thought he was supposed to see a pair of broken wings was drawn by shadows at the wall behind him._

_“I love you, Dean,” the man whispered, and he felt his heart clenched with a feeling he only knew too well – fear. His skin burnt with something he couldn’t identify as hot or cold; and he wasn’t disgusted, he was terrified._

_“We – we could never be together, Cas. Us, that is something that can never happen.” His voice sounded broken, and somewhere within his mind, he knew why – because he had been taught by life to be scared of losing what was most important to him, and he could never risk losing Cas. He already had lost him, a few times actually, but if he would admit his feelings to him, it would hurt more than he could even imagine – more than he could possibly bear._

_The man’s voice was trembling when he spoke again, holding on to the last gasp of hope he had left. “Dean, please.”_

_“No, Cas. You chose us over heaven over and over. I can’t make you choose me again.”_

_“I am trapped here, Dean. I can’t return to heaven anyways. So many of my brothers and sisters have fallen –“_

_Dean cut him off. “I can’t – Cas, you probably won’t ever be able to return to heaven again if we do this.”_

_“That’s fine by me, Dean. You and I both know that I never really belonged there.”_

_“I can’t make you lose your home, Cas.” His voice trembled not half as bad as he thought it would._

_“This is my home, Dean, and I wouldn’t change it for anything. My home is with you and Sam.”_

_“Leave.”_

_The man stared at him, bright blue eyes tearing up. “Dean,_ please _–“_

_“Leave. Now.”_

_And so he did. And Dean knew that it was the right thing, no matter how wrong it felt._

 

Dean woke up covered by layers of his own sweat.

 

It’s been a hell of a long time since he had last had a dream. And he swore by god that not one single dream he’d ever had had felt so real.

 

For the glimpse of a moment he thought he remembered the face of the man, as though he had seen it before – but as soon as he tried to recall his features, they started fading away, blurring the more he tried to concentrate on his nose, his lips, his eyes.

 

Within seconds, he had forgotten how the man had looked like at all.

 

After a minute, he wasn’t able to recall his name.

 

 

~’”*O*”’~

 

 

He was still haunted by fainted pieces of his dream as he walked up the stairs to the floor he was working on. He would first check if there were any new patients he would have to take care of, and after that he would visit Castiel, the junky who thought he was an angel.

 

Dean wondered how one could fall that far – Castiel had a pretty face, to be completely honest, and even though he didn’t seem to be comfortable interacting with others, he was pretty sure Castiel should have at least _some_ friends with these eyes in that fucking weird shade of blue that Dean could swore he had never seen before, and yet reminded him of something he could not put his finger on.

 

When he reached the second floor, he suddenly found a young man in front of him. Well, not that young, Dean guesses him to be around 30 years, though his hazel-sunflower puppy eyes made him seem so much younger to Dean, like he needed to be protected at all costs. Well, if it wasn’t for the ridiculously intimidating height and the toned arms, anyways.

 

“How are you doing, Dean?” The man asked with a frowny smile on his face. For a moment, Dean wondered if he was new staff here, but that idea was thrown away rather quickly – the guy way wearing a ridiculous amount of clothing layers, including flannel, and if Dean knew one thing, it was that nurses neither wear flannel nor 4 layers of clothes.

 

“Excuse me, do I know you?” He went through the list of patients he usually was in charge of, but none of them resembled this guy.

 

However, the suddenly lost look within these confusing eyes reminded him of his brother – his brother who had died years ago at the age of six months in a fire that had killed his mother as well. He hadn’t been able to save Sammy.

 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the man said eventually, his frown deepening, “I must have confused you with my – my cousin, Dean, he looks similar to you, I’m sorry.”

 

“Dude, I’m the only Dean that works here.”

 

“Right, sorry again.” The man skimmed his white working clothes, and smiled innocently. “I got into an accident and bumped my head, that might be it. I was just about to leave, actually.

 

Dean didn’t want to buy any of that bullshit, but it seemed he had no other choice, and he doubted he had a secret stalker. “Are you feeling dizzy? Want me to do a few checks on you?”

 

The man smiled again and pushed his shoulder long hair back. “No, I’m fine, really, but thank you. Though, if it wouldn’t be too much to ask, could you tell me where I can find Doctor Gabriel?”

 

“Doc’s enjoying his day off. Are you sure there’s nothing I can do for you though, Sir? Do you want Doctor Gabriel to call you, maybe?” Dean started to search for a pen within the depths of his pockets.

 

“No, that won’t be necessary. Thank you.”

 

Dean nodded with his glued-on nurse-smile, but the man still didn’t look like he was about to leave. Dean cleared his throat. “Do you want me to pass on something?”

 

For the split of a second, a shit eating grin appeared on the man’s face. “You can tell _Doctor Gabriel_ that I will kick his ass one I find him,” he said happily, before nodding again and making his way past Dean towards the elevators.

 

After he continued to stand there and stare after the man for a solid minute, he shook his head. He would definitely _not_ pass that on to Doctor Gabriel. _Also, fuck it, I can check on other patients later._

 

 

~’”*O*”’~

 

 

Castiel was awake when he entered the room. He was sitting upright, calmly looking at the wall on the other side of the room.

 

Dean walked over to him and sat down on the chair next to his bed. “Morning, Castiel. How are we feeling today?”

 

Castiel squinted at him without greeting him back. “I don’t know how _we_ are feeling, Dean. I only know about myself.”

 

“How about you, then?” Dean smiled at him, and for the first time within the last few weeks, it was a genuine smile.

 

“I’m still in pain. They won’t give me morphine.”

 

“Can’t guess where that comes from,” Dean stated sarcastically. “But that’s not what I was asking.”

 

Castiel took his time, but when he answered, he turned so he could look at Dean. “It’s boring in here, and I want to do something. But I’m… not unhappy.” He said this like he wasn’t quite sure about it, or like he wasn’t sure how being “not unhappy” actually felt.

 

“Didn’t you bring anything here? Like, books?” Dean asked curiously.

 

“Dean, from what Doctor Gabriel told me, you found me half-dead next to a church. I did not really have a choice to bring anything here.”

 

Dean cleared his throat. Well, the guy had a point. “How about family? Friends? You must have someone who can bring stuff over.”

 

Castiel cocked his head to one side and growled as his neck crackled, and Dean could almost hear how the gearwheels in his mind started rattling. “I had family,” he started carefully, unsure, “but I don’t know where to find them.”

 

Dean leaned forward, and his heart tightened in sympathy for Castiel. How could anybody be as lost as that? “But you must have friends? Someone who cares about you? And a home?”

 

“I – I don’t know,” Castiel answered, his brows drawing together. He was desperately trying to remember something, and after a while, Castiel gasped in pain.

 

When he opened his eyes, the blue was clouded with tears. “I can’t remember.”

 

Dean rested a palm on his shoulder, gently squeezing it. “Take it easy, man. It’s alright.”

 

“There were many books, and a man who always drank too much beer – but I can’t –“

 

“You like books then?” Dean cut him off, gently changing the direction of where their conversation was heading. He smiled at Castiel, and his face softened.

 

“I like to read,” Castiel said.

 

“We have a small library here,” Dean answered, standing up and walking around the bed to get the wheelchair into position. “What kind of books do you usually read?”

 

Castiel gently placed the white blankets aside and began to heave himself over to the side of the bed. “Do you have any books on cars?”

 

“You like cars then, too?” Dean asked while he helped Castiel into the wheelchair, taking care that the man wasn’t in any more pain than usual.

 

Castiel blinked, as if he wasn’t sure whether he liked cars or not. “I think so,” he murmured after a while, his gaze far off into the distance. “I dreamt of a 67 Chevy Impala tonight. Someone kept calling it Baby. Why would anyone call a car Baby?”

 

Dean couldn’t contain a chuckle. “What kind of douchebag would that have to be, huh?”

 

Castiel smiled softly, even though Dean couldn’t see him. “Yeah, a douchebag,” he whispered, too quietly for Dean to catch it.

 

 

~’”*O*”’~

 

 

They returned to room 2-63 with a pile of books on Castiel’s lap. Dean had offered him to carry them, but Castiel had answered that he’d need both of his hands to push the wheelchair, and Dean hadn’t been able to find an argument against that.

 

“Are you sure they aren’t hurting your leg?” Dean had asked for the millionth time, and Castiel had simple growled at him as an answer. He seemed to do that pretty often.

 

They had gotten quite a few books on cars, but there was one about bees that had caught Castiel’s eye as well, and surprisingly enough the man had been pretty interested in the Avengers after seeing Loki on the cover. Dean hadn’t bothered asking.

 

There was a strange familiarity to the movement when Castiel opened the one about the bees (“ _Honey – the blood of the earth_ ”), his lips curving upwards when his fingers ghosted over the image printed on the front page.

 

His eyes lingered on the gentle cupid bow of Castiel’s rosy lips, and he wondered how soft they had been before whatever happened to this man happened. He silently noted that he should buy chapstick when his working day would end.

 

He licked his own lips unconsciously, chin rested in his palm. “Cas?”

 

Castiel hummed at the nickname, but he didn’t look up from his book. Dean smiled gently.

 

“What happened to your family?”

 

Cas looked up at him as he turned the page. “They fell as well,” he answered slowly, his face twisted. “But they weren’t quite my family anymore before that happened.”

 

Dean wondered if falling from heaven was a metaphor for anything. Half tempted to ask if it hurt, he helplessly shrugged, “Did you fall in love?”

 

The moment the question had left his lips, Dean knew it was an inappropriate thing to ask a patient. Cas, however, didn’t seem to mind. He looked at Dean, simply looked at Dean until he shifted uncomfortably under the burning blue gaze.

 

“I think I did,” Cas finally whispered, “but I can’t remember him.”

 

Dean was almost surprised by how unsurprised the tiny little word “him” left him. He didn’t even _blink_. And he didn’t really care, either.

 

“Why can’t you remember him?” Dean asked softly.

 

Cas placed the book aside and frantically ran a hand through his thick black hair. His expression was so desperate, so pained, and Dean could feel the waves of emotions Cas let loose impale his skin with thousands of knifes.

 

It was just in that moment he realized he wanted nothing more than to hug him.

 

Familiarity.

 

The noise the chair made as it was pulled over the floor hurt in his own ears, and the short time in heaven when Castiel had been Cas was over. “I have to check on my other patients now. I will bring you some clothes tomorrow.”

 

He didn’t turn as he felt Castiel’s gaze burning on his back. He didn’t turn as he closed the door, cursing his own unprofessionalism.

 

He didn’t know what to do with all of these emotions that came flooding out of nowhere just to crash right over him and bury him beneath the ruins. He felt as if he’d met Castiel before, maybe in another life, in a parallel universe.

 

Just the thought of that hurt him more than he thought was possible, and for a moment he thought he heard a broken man whisper, “Dean, _please_ –”.

 

He didn’t know how to deal with any of this.

 

He did hear Castiel’s answer though, and the door not nearly thick enough to shut out how pained he sounded, how desperate he was, or the loneliness Dean knew he felt. He did hear how his breath stuttered, how the man groaned in pain as he tried to remember the man he once loved.

 

“I don’t know.”

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was probably not one of my brightest ideas, but I started writing it anyways and it didn't turn out as bad as I expected it to, so yeah. Comments and feedback are much appreciated!


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